Kingdom of Strangers: A Novel [Hardcover]

There's a quote on the book cover from a Guardian review of City of Veils that makes a very perceptive observation about Zoë Ferraris' work. While her stories are great detective fiction in their own right, they are intrinsically linked to their Saudi Arabian setting - it's much more than just a colourful exotic background - the author managing through them to trace the roots of many of the crimes against women right back to the misuse of religion in a society with very different attitudes and values to Western civilisation.

That's even more the case in Kingdom of Strangers, which opens with the discovery of nineteen female bodies - all of them seemingly runaway immigrants not missed by anyone - uncovered in the sand dunes in the desert by Inspector Ibrahim Zahrani. The number nineteen also has mystical significance relating to the Quran and various other clues suggest further patterns, making this particular and unusual case of serial killing even more potentially explosive. While this is a strong central crime for investigation, Zoë Ferraris manages however to subtly show a much more extensive problem relating to the place of women within Saudi society through related cases and even through the everyday lives of her characters.

I say "subtly", but there's nothing subtle about the actual nature of the shocking treatment endured by women in Saudi society there, and indeed in some extreme cases of religious devotion, treatment that is even sanctioned and instigated by women themselves. What is subtle however is how the author manages to delve behind the veil of the burqa, mainly through Katya, a forensic scientist on the police force in an uncertain position in her life and career, and show that there is much more going on there than most men would like to believe. These incidents and insights are weaved brilliantly and realistically into the fabric of the main criminal investigation, deepening the meaning and relevance of the murders.

It's not uncommon to see the personal lives of recurring characters involved in their cases, but this aspect seems to be even more integrated into the overall narrative in the case of Ibrahim and Katya. Each of them necessarily have to keep secrets in their own personal lives due to the nature of Saudi and religious law, and their own circumstances show just how difficult this lack of openness can make the investigation of any serious crime. Kingdom of Strangers is therefore another strong work from Zoë Ferraris on every level. It's an intriguing serial killer murder investigation, it's a continuation of the development of genuinely interesting and evolving characters, it's revelatory of all kinds of sickness within Saudi society, but it also gets to the beauty of the people and the world they live in.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Zoe Ferraris's novels, particularly for the strong characterizations, and a glimpse into what is, to me, a really alien culture. I am very interested in how the continuing stories of Katya and Nayir and others are playing out, but I was less satisfied with Kingdom of Strangers as a policier than I was with the other two. Maybe it is because I am thoroughly sick of the serial killer trope. This one did not dwell on the sadism and psychosis of the killer as others in the genre do, but I found it a bit jumbled and not very compelling, in spite of the quite ornate series of crimes. That said, I still give it four stars, and highly recommend it. Also, a visit to the Zoe Ferraris website and blog is recommended, as she provides background information on how she came to write the books and links to blogs by Saudi women.

Zoe Ferraris has become one of my favourite authors - not only are her mysteries unpredictable and fresh enough to keep the pages turning, but she introduces us to a world that is, for many Westerners, completely foreign and shrouded in myth. Ferraris has tremendous respect for Saudi Arabia and Islam, and just as in her first two books, she shatters the myths and gives us an intimate view of everyday life.

In that respect, I have to disagree a bit with the first reviewer of this book - it is not about damning a whole society for its treatment of women. Rather, the book is about the people who live in that society and how much we share in common.

After the bodies are found, many of the police immediately assume that their serial killer must be a foreigner - a Saudi wouldn't do such a thing. This brings to mind the first reactions to the Oklahoma City bombing - until we learnt otherwise, we were sure that the terrorist was a madman from the Middle-East - an American wouldn't do such a thing. The same can be said of the treatment of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia - it is permitted because they are seen as different - as something less than people. (And Saudi Arabia hardly has a monopoly on cruelty toward foreign workers - whole vans of immigrants coming into the US have been abandoned in the southwestern desert, the workers locked up to die a horrible death.)

The message here is that the more we concentrate on our differences, the less we see one another as fellow human beings. Ultimately, it is this separation between us and them that allows us to do terrible things to one another. Zoe Ferraris tears down the wall and allows us to see the Saudis as people who are more like us than not.